Pennsylvania Otters —
A Success Story
By Cindy Ross
W
E WALK through tall grasses
and high-bush blueberries in
our cloddy hip-boots, stepping gingerly
on the soft ground. Alongside Mehoopany Creek, there are holes every few
feet, and we are unable to see what
lies beneath. A leg drops into one, we
trip, we slide. I’m poking around the
wilds of Game Lands 57 with retired
Game Commission Region Director
Barry Warner, looking for otter and
otter sign. He points out a hole that is
being used consistently.
The edge of the hole has
frozen moisture around it.
The frost actually comes
from the otter’s breath
that condenses on the rim
of the hole and freezes as
it exits.
I’m knee deep in otter/beaver/mink habitat.
In a three-county-wide
area, there is a plethora
of ponds and streams
and boggy areas offering
ideal habitat to these
water-loving mammals.
Some of the habitat is
Game Lands 57, 66 and
13; some is state forest,
others include Ricketts
Glen State Park and some
is private . . . a vast, mostly
protected land. There
are almost 100,000 acres
APRIL 2013
across Wyoming, Luzerne and
Sullivan counties and this otter
habitat even extends into parts of
Monroe, Carbon and Susquehanna
counties.
This land is so ideal that when
the rest of the state’s otter population collapsed and disappeared by
the late 1800s, otters persisted in
this pocket of the Poconos. Otters
depend on healthy habitat, which
was in decline or nonexistent
19